Watch Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page Rock the Theremin, the Early Soviet Electronic Instrument

Led Zeppelin’s appeal extends beyond legal disputes and rock-star stereotypes, with occult songwriting, blues-rock influences, and innovative studio and live mash-ups of modern rock, folk, and classical instrumentation. The band’s recording techniques reflect technical wizardry, including guitarist Jimmy Page’s use of the Theremin. Introduced in 1919 by Leon Theremin, the instrument produces high-pitched singing when a player’s hands enter its invisible electrical fields. Page played it with guitar-like bends and feedback, using a Sonic Wave Theremin during Zeppelin days and running it through effects and amplifiers such as a Maestro Echoplex and Orange amps and cabinets. He also used a double-stacked Theremin in 1971.

"It can be frus­trat­ing for Led Zep­pelin fans to hear the band reduced to pla­gia­rism law­suits or the quin­tes­sence of sex­u­al­ly-aggres­sive rock-star enti­tle­ment (though much of that is deserved). For one thing, Zeppelin's occult song­writ­ing ten­den­cies, cour­tesy of both Page and Plant, play just as promi­nent a role as their blues-rock come-ons (as sev­er­al gen­er­a­tions of fan­ta­sy met­al bands can attest)."

"And final­ly, the band's record­ing tech­ni­ques were-for the time-demonstrations of tech­ni­cal wiz­ardry. Thus it should come as no sur­prise that tech­ni­cal wiz­ard Jim­my Page would play the Theremin, though he does play on it the kind of scream­ing, feed­back-laden bends he unleashed from his Les Paul."

"Intro­duced to the world by Sovi­et inven­tor Leon Theremin in 1919, the ear­ly elec­tron­ic instru­ment emits high-pitched singing when a play­er's hands come with­in range of its invis­i­ble elec­tri­cal fields. "It hasn't got six strings," Page says in his demon­stra­tion at the top of the post, from the 2009 film It Might Get Loud, "but it's a lot of fun.""

"Page used a Son­ic Wave Theremin in his Zep­pelin days in a very gui­tar-like way-running it through a Mae­stro Echoplex and Orange amps and cab­i­nets. (Watch him revive the tech­nique in a 1995 French TV broad­cast above.) For sev­er­al months in 1971, writes fan­site Achilles Last Stand, Page "used a dou­ble-stacked Theremin" for twice the son­ic"

Read at Open Culture